Stop Wildlife Poisoning

Category: carbofuran | Date: Oct 07 2009 | By: Martin Odino

The deadly aspect about Furadan and any other poisoning is its concealed manner of killing. It is even worse when those using the chemical to kill wildlife do it in an unobtrusive way. I mean stealth and seemingly normal movements when in reality they are taking down unsuspecting victims. A monotonous sentences composition for this blog!

In assesing the impact of my education to poachers in Bunyala, a portion of the poachers acknowledge the venture is barbaric and while change to farming appears a difficult shift in lifestyle, some are contemplating embracing the change. But there is the immoral lot who have opted to beat me at the game and deny me access to the actual facts and figures of the still on-going poisoning and realized bird mortality.

During this week, we came across this poacher who was equiped with farming impliments like any other person working in the rice scheme. The fellow seemed to be turning upside down mounds of earth, picking up what we later found out were earthworms and putting them in a cup with Furadan. The bait searching is what gave him away because he seemed to be walking about aimlessly. Suspicious that he was up to some mischief , we had our binoculars on the guy and true to our suspicion the guy was poisoning waders but most shocking was how he was recovering the carcasses of the poisoned birds:

The guy used his cutlass to flatten mounds of earth formed by earthworms and jutting out of the flooding water. These are most ideal bait laying sites if the waders have to see and feed on the bait.

He then went ahead to lay the bait; eartworms laced with Furadan

Then came the moment of waiting for the waders to get intoxicated.

Everytime a substancial number (on average between 4 & 6) of birds became drowsy and dropped on the ground the chap moved in and picked the dying and the dead. The sandpipers that were still strong were strangled!

Then he pocketed them!

And pocketted still more!

My tally was 108 between 11.00 and 12.30. The guy after every trip to gather his spoils headed behind a termite mound where he had hid his sack and made several trips to hide his catch from our probing eyes. Satisfied, he walked away fast and in line with the raised earth mound so we could not capture him before disappearing behind bushes.

A ruff at the Bunyala irrigation Scheme in eclipse (intermediate) plumage- Most birds are in the transition from post breeding plumage to winter or non-breeding plumage which upon attaining the legs and bills will be dull grey (rather than pinkish -orange).

This is how the ruffs are flocking in Bunyala to refuel their energy bundles before emabarking on their continuing journey down to South Africa. Such will be the down trend of migrant birds during the remainder of the season which is a long 8 months period lasting from September to about end of April. Unless of course the chemical that is empowering the poachers to poison the poor creatures is banished.

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Technorati : Bunyal Irrigationn Scheme, Furadan, Poisoning

Tags: Bunyal Irrigationn Scheme, furadan, poisoning